Leafs deal Penguins a devastating blow

This was an absolute pukefest. An embarassment. A joke. The Pens have a lot of guys out with injuries, and they need them back soon, because this is rock bottom. Tough game on Monday and Buffalo and the Pens will need

We see that the Penguins and Leafs are both wearing their third/throwback jerseys, the Pens' baby blues and the Leafs' whites. Marc-Andre Fleury is not wearing his throwback pads.

Brooks Orpik absolutely destroyed Niklas Hagman a minute and a half in. Hagman, who has been out with injury, was entering the Pens' end, and he got some Free Candy in a big way. It was a truly devastating blow from #44.

Lee Stempniak almost put in one on his own rebound off the end board, but Fleury was alert and made the stop. Something happened to Evgeni Malkin, and he skated gingerly to the bench.

Jason Blake, the same little puke who speared Sidney Crosby in the gut a few years ago, was shoved by Rob Scuderi over top of Fleury. The Leafs had a 6-1 lead in shots six minutes into the game.

The Leafs were taking it to the Pens when FSN took its first commercial break.

Ryan Stone went to the box for roughing. It's not apparent what he was called for doing.

Dominic Moore cashed in a rebound to make it 1-0, and the Pens looked just horrific. Pavel Kubina shot it, and Moore had "easy pickings," according to Bob Errey.

The Pens went on the powerplay just seconds later when Alexei Ponikarovski took a two minute minor for high sticking Evgeni Malkin. The Pens gave the powerplay away 28 seconds into it when Jordan Staal went off for cross-checking. The game had the feeling of another very annoying special teams battle.

Malkin tied it 1-1 during the 4 on 4. He jumped off the bench for Crosby, took a 40 foot pass from Mark Eaton, and sped past the defense. When it got down to Malkin vs. Vesa Toskala, there wasn't much question who was going to get the better of the situation.

The Leafs pulled back in front with 8:57 remaining. Rookie Jeremy Williams took a long distance slapper that inexplicably beat Fleury glove side. Simpy horrific goal to give up by MAF, and he knew it. Flower was very mad at himself.

Jonas Frogren put the Leafs up 3-1 beating Fleury with a long wrister. It's his first goal. MAF was screened, but he looks like horse crap right now. The Pens needed to pull it together.

Jordan Staal had a nice shift with some big hits on Stempniak and Mikhail Grabovksi.

Gronk was all over the place on that shift. His line with Matt Cooke and temporarily Jeff Taffe kept the puck in the Toronto end for longer than the Pens had kept any offensive pressure to that juncture. Very nice breakdown of it all by Bob Errey.

This was the kind of intermission that you want to spend walking between your bathroom and your family room, pacing, and having the occasional sip of orange juice in between expulsion of various wastes. It was that tense. The Pens were playing a humiliating brand of hockey.

Orpik and Cooke continued to throw their body around, and at one point, Scuds appeared to get away with a slew-foot on Lee Stempniak. He got away with it, but it's too bad and very uncharacteristic of Rob to do something like that.

Malkin had his sticked grabbed by a Leafs' defenseman, and he was called for a hook. The Leafs almost scored on the delayed penalty. That call was garbage.

Crosby got a pass from Max Talbot late in the PK, but Kubina stamped out the scoring chance when the puck caromed off his skate and into open ice. It was a good penalty kill.

Malkin made a horrible turnover that seemed to pretty much end the game. Geno skated the puck through his own goalmouth, had it stolen, and Hagman scored. Malkin may well deserved to be benched for that selfish display. It was 4-1. Life sucked.

The Pens allowed the Leafs' fourth line to control the puck for about 25 minutes. That was pretty much rock bottom. Malkin gave Fedotenko a nice pass in the slot but it slid past Fedo's stick. ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.

Miro Satan had a beautiful chance on Toskala, but Satan took his sweet old time and fired right into Toskala's stacked pads. He looks like a pretty worthless player right now.

Ponikarovsky slew-footed Talbot. Too bad Poni's parents don't love him.

Eric Godard went to the box for instigating on Andre Deveaux. The Pens were being outshot 19-11, and things were not improving. It's almost on cue--the Pens get it going, and then someone takes a penalty.

That was still cowardly by Deveaux, even if it was smart.

Kubina drilled one past Fleury on that powerplay to make it 5-1. The sum all fears was realized. The Penguins just getting routed...at home...by a team stocked full of AHLers and Beer Leaguers.

Matt Cooke stirred things up with some Leafs scrub rookie. Good on him to try to change this dreadful game's momentum.

The second intermission was worse than the first. You sat on your couch twiddling your thumbs. You weren't really thinking, but rather just sat stunned as you gazed at your TV. You watched Baierl Toyota/Chevy/Kia commercials, but you didn't care about 20% financing deals and things like that. If you own a firearm, you probably locked it up in a safe and hid the safe deep in a basement storage area. Thoughts of suicide may have filled your head. Perhaps, you turned to NFL Network to catch some of the final game at Texas Stadium. The Cowboys were beating the Ravens 7-3 in the second quarter. Meh.

Petr Sykora preserved our sanity on the powerplay at the beginning of the final frame. He got a loose puck in front and put it over Toskala's shoulder. Oh, two points for Malkin. Yeaaaaa.

Another slew-foot ensued when Frogren took out Fedotenko and put the Penguins once again on the powerplay. The floodgates had opened up, or so we thought. The chance was there to make this a brand new game.

Jason Blake took a huge dive that got Sykora sent to the box for tripping. Very uncool. Alex Goligoski skated the puck up the ice, and he was blatantly upended but there was no call.

Ponikarovksy ended the game for all intensive purposes just after the Leafs' PP ended.

Godard almost scored, but a quick whistle negated that venture.

Nik Antropov scored after Crosby took a stupid penalty. This was the worst game of 87's life.

Eric Godard was thrown out of the game for talking to the cowardly Blake. He has the class of a diseased rat, that Blake. He's no better than when he speared Crosby two years ago.

Sykora got a goal in garbage time. It was a nice tip-in off a Goligoski slapper.

Deveaux, who backed down from Godard, seeked out Fedotenko and fought him. That's grit for you--I hope Brian Burke is impressed with this clown.

Orpik took a stick to the face from Antropov. Shucks. Fortunately he got up, albeit bloody.

The officials were atrocious, but they werent' the reason the Pens lost this game. The Pens had it taken to them tonight, and they deserved to lose the game. They need to change something, or this will get bad.

Be optimistic.

Pens v. Sabres, Monday night.

Forget this one, and fast.